Environment Committee on Feb. 13th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Mazier.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming out here today.

Mr. Higgins, we've heard about the devastating impact that raw sewage dumping has on Canadian waterways. IISD released information on how untreated sewage contributes to harmful algal blooms. Can you discuss the harmful impact that sewage in water has and share recommendations on how to address this issue?

[Scott Higgins]

We've been doing work on algal blooms at the Experimental Lakes Area for over 50 years. It started back when it was a federal institution. That's why the Experimental Lakes Area was actually started: to deal with the algal bloom issues in the Laurentian Great Lakes. They're very pervasive now. This is one of the biggest and the most ubiquitous issues around the world for fresh water.

Our position is that phosphorous is really the key element that we need to target. It comes from more than one source: point sources and non-point sources, and treated and untreated. It depends on where you are, which is most important. When we encounter a problem—let's say it's Lake Winnipeg or elsewhere—we say, first, let's target and find out exactly where this phosphorous is coming from, so that we can efficiently and effectively deal with the problem.

In the Lake Winnipeg watershed, for example, only 6% to 9% of the phosphorous is coming from waste-water treatment plants in Winnipeg. The vast majority is coming from non-point sources. In those circumstances, we say, “Focus the effort here on non-point sources because we need to deal with that problem.” In other areas, it's raw sewage or treated sewage.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

I’ll follow up on that.

Can you table or forward to the committee what studies have been done? Where are we as far as dumping raw sewage, even outside Manitoba and across Canada?

It says on your website that, “Winnipeg's North End Water Pollution Control Centre is the single largest point source of phosphorus flowing into Lake Winnipeg and the fourth largest phosphorus polluter among all wastewater treatment facilities in Canada.”

I don't quite understand why you're going after all the rest of the Assiniboine River basin and the Red River basin on non-point sources when you have one big nest of pollution sitting right there that could be addressed very succinctly.

[Scott Higgins]

I absolutely agree with you that we need to target the point sources. In fact, the City of Winnipeg's waste-water treatment plants have not been meeting their phosphorous discharge targets for a very long time and they need to. That absolutely needs to be addressed.

I guess what I'm arguing is that if we address those, it's still not going to be enough because 60% to 70% of the phosphorous that flows into Lake Winnipeg comes from non-point sources. If we want to address the problem, we also need to deal with those issues.

I totally agree that we need to deal with the point sources.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

I've been a lifelong farmer, living out on the landscape. I farm out by the Brandon area, upstream of Winnipeg.

You're talking about two prairie provinces, the Red River basin and into the United States. I do honestly think that it is a place where we can really focus and get some wins and then start going forward on that, instead of blaming agriculture for doing what it does.

Do you have any recommendations on effluent regulations? Where do you think we should go with this?

If we're going to tackle those effluent regulations, is there a way? Should we maybe focus more on the cities? What should we do?

[Scott Higgins]

I think that we need to deal with waste-water treatment plants that discharge into receiving waters, especially where there are issues, like Winnipeg and algal bloom issues. Places that we would want to deal with the fastest would be the target.

There's discussion at the policy level, depending on where you are in the country or in the United States, on whether we treat nitrogen or not to deal with this eutrophication or algal bloom issue. Our position is that it's very costly to deal with nitrogen and we are unconvinced that it would actually solve the problem.

Our position is that we really need to focus our resources on dealing with phosphorous from waste water and other sources.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Mr. Ali, you have five minutes.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today and sharing your knowledge and experience with us.

During its meetings in early February, the committee heard concerns from several witnesses about a couple of human resources shortages.

One witness said that hydrogeology graduate programs had trouble finding Canadian graduate students to take advantage of the available research funding opportunities. Several other witnesses informed the committee that there are not enough certified water technicians to meet residential consumer demand.

I have two questions arising from that testimony.

What could the federal government be doing differently to attract Canadians to freshwater fields of study and to keep specialists, both Canadian and international, in Canada?

Are Canadian federal freshwater research facilities and funding opportunities sufficient to retain academics and to attract high-calibre graduate students?

I will start with Mr. Higgins, please.

[Scott Higgins]

That's a really good question about what we would typically refer to as highly qualified personnel and their training.

I'll say very personally from the Experimental Lakes Area example that, in addition to the research and monitoring that we do, we have a large number of undergraduate and graduate students and even high school students now who come to our facility. We offer them employment for the summer, but through that employment, they gain a lot of expertise. They go on to other jobs in government, consultancies or industry.

We have benefited greatly from a number of federal funding programs that help organizations hire students, specifically in environmental fields. I think that can be a real benefit.

Another thing that we have found very helpful is that a number of universities have co-operative education programs where students not only can do their academic training but also can receive on-the-ground training within industry or partners like ourselves in the water sector. This really benefits them because when they finish their undergraduate degrees, they have experience in the sector and can more easily find jobs in the sector.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Malcolmson, do you want to add something to that?

[Claire Malcolmson]

Sure. I'm not a science...a water-researcher person, so I don't have a whole lot to add to this.

I'm trying to find some people who will provide a second opinion about the impacts of the Bradford Bypass on water. I'll keep talking about that. It's really challenging because people don't want to speak out against the government.

I come back to this: Either the Government of Canada or the Government of Ontario really need to use the tools that they have. The affordability crisis in Canada is pretty huge. Not a lot of people can risk their future by sticking their neck out to protect a water body. The kind of thing that I do is really rare. There aren't a lot of folks who are taking this kind of risk. So, yes, please support the scientists, but also please do the work so that you don't ask people to put their careers at risk by providing a second opinion about controversial information.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Dr. Higgins, it's been nine years since the International Institute for Sustainable Development took the management of the Experimental Lakes Area. There is some work being done there on the impact of climate change on the lakes. Could you please elaborate on that aspect of the research being done?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Unfortunately, we are out of time.

Would you be able to send a short note about this to the committee? Then we'll be able to incorporate it in our evidence.

[Scott Higgins]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

It was a very interesting discussion, and you opened up some new perspectives that I think we hadn't really seen so far in the study.

Thank you to all the witnesses.

We're going to break for about five minutes to onboard the witnesses for the second panel.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Good afternoon to our second panel.

In the interests of time, I won't read all the names out now. I'll read them as the witnesses come up for their five-minute remarks.

We'll start with DataStream. Aislin Livingstone, program manager, is here in person.

Ms. Livingstone, go ahead. You have five minutes.

[Aislin Livingstone, Program Manager, DataStream]

Thank you to the committee for inviting us. My name is Aislin Livingstone, and I'm honoured to be here today representing DataStream in my capacity as water program manager.

The focus of our testimony today is data. Canada-wide, we have a major problem around access to water data. This is affecting our ability to make evidence-based decisions. At DataStream, we've come to know this challenge intimately through our own work in trying to track down water data across the country.

DataStream is a charity dedicated to advancing freshwater protection through open data and the inclusion of public voices in decision-making. We've been working in this area for about 10 years. In that time, DataStream has dramatically improved the availability of water-quality data in Canada. We have done this through our comprehensive programming, which includes an online data-sharing platform. Over 260 organizations are using DataStream to share almost 40 million data points collected at monitoring locations from coast to coast to coast. We work with community groups, governments, indigenous nations and academics who are sharing data so that it can be put to use for freshwater protection. It's great to see that three monitoring organizations that we have collaborated closely with are also appearing as witnesses today.

While we've made major progress, there is still significant work ahead. Much of this needs to be led by government agencies. The recommendations I am sharing today focus on three areas where we can make progress in addressing Canada's data access issue. These are working with community-based groups, making data openly accessible and improving coordination. These recommendations draw on our 10 years of experience working to improve access to data in Canada.

I'll start with community. Communities are an essential part of Canada's ability to adapt to freshwater issues and climate change. DataStream works with more than 150 community organizations, indigenous and non-indigenous, that are out on their waters, monitoring and responding to environmental changes as they happen.

In Atlantic Canada, where I live, we work with more than 70 watershed groups that are tackling such issues as endangered salmon habitat, pesticides from agricultural runoff, and contamination from gold mining, among many others. There's also an incredible example right here in Ottawa. Over the last 20 years, Ottawa Riverkeeper, whom you'll hear from later, has made major headway in applying the data they collect to finding solutions to issues that range from road salts to sewage overflows.

To realize the full potential of these on-the-ground initiatives and ensure that communities are meaningfully engaged in water decisions, a unified federal approach to community-based monitoring is needed, including resources, investment and cross-sector partnership building. We recommend that the federal government use data collected by communities for informed decision-making, including climate change adaptation, and provide long-term funding support for community-led monitoring and restoration.

I'll move on to open data. Water data needs to be open by default so that policies and decisions are based on the best available evidence. Progress has been made to improve access to federally collected data, but more work is needed. From 2019 to 2020 alone, the Government of Canada invested over $73 million in water-related research. However, the data from this kind of research isn't always shared publicly. Ensuring that this data is openly accessible would maximize these investments by facilitating broader data reuse.

To share another example, despite extensive water monitoring and research, in the 2020 global data drive sustainable development goal 6.3.2—it tracks the health of ambient water quality—Canada reported on the status of rivers but has not reported on groundwater or open water bodies, such as lakes and reservoirs.

We know that a freshwater data strategy is being developed by the Canada water agency, and we're optimistic that it will achieve an integrated, coordinated and standardized approach to freshwater data. This should include both surface water and groundwater. To achieve this, we recommend that the federal government fully implement existing open data policies so that all data collected using public funds are also publicly available; harmonize data across departments, programs and jurisdictions by adopting universal data standards; and invest in sustainable, scalable data systems so that Canada's freshwater data strategy is built to last.

Finally, I'll go to coordination. We consistently hear that it's really hard to figure out who's doing what when it comes to water in Canada. For example, over 20 federal departments have responsibilities related to water. While there's a reason for this complexity—water is involved in everything, from human health to industry—the monitoring groups we work with want to help find solutions, but they're not always sure who to talk to. In our work, we have seen that water data is managed totally differently from one jurisdiction to the next. Better co-operation will allow communities and governments to invest more efficiently in monitoring and respond more quickly to freshwater issues. Ultimately, this will build trust in the institutions that are responsible for water.

Now is a great time to improve transparency and coordination of surface water and groundwater activities in Canada. We recommend that the Canada water agency provide a water concierge service to actively connect people to the appropriate decision-making bodies, both indigenous and non-indigenous.

In closing, thank you again to this committee for the opportunity to share our views with you for your study of fresh water in Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Living Lakes Canada. We have Kat Hartwig, Georgia Peck and Paige Thurston all on video conference.

Ms. Hartwig, please go ahead with your introductory remarks.

[Kat Hartwig, Executive Director, Living Lakes Canada]

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.

My name is Kat Hartwig. I'm the executive director and co-founder of Living Lakes Canada.

I've worked in the NGO environmental sector for 33 years, with the last 20 focused on freshwater stewardship. I live in Brisco, B.C., which is the traditional territory of the Ktunaxa and Secwepemc nations.

Living Lakes Canada programs include education, research, monitoring, data collection, restoration and policy development for the long-term protection of lakes, rivers, wetlands, aquifers and watersheds in Canada. We work to help people address the impacts of climate change on water quality and quantity and biodiversity in their respective communities.

Joining us today are my colleagues Paige Thurston, manager of our Columbia Basin hydrometric and groundwater program, and Georgia Peck, manager of all of our lakes monitoring programs across Canada. They are here to help answer your questions.

We will provide you with three recommendations for your study on fresh water based on our experience from the last two decades working in freshwater research, monitoring and data.

Our work originates in the Canadian Columbia Basin, which lies between two mountain ranges, the Rockies and the Purcells. This area is considered to be the water towers for our food-growing belts in southeastern B.C., the prairie provinces and parts of the U.S. We are currently experiencing extreme drought conditions from last year with no expected relief and likely worsening conditions this year. The cycle of drought, forest fires and flooding has become our new norm.

Recommendations for the study on fresh water are as follows.

Recommendation one is to include the Canadian Columbia Basin, a watershed of national significance, in the freshwater action plan, with designated funding via the Canada water agency, or other funding mechanisms, that will support the monitoring and data collection needed to inform water allocation and community adaptation options.

Recommendation two is that any coordinated water and climate monitoring networks being implemented in other river basins be built upon existing successful regional efforts, such as the Columbia Basin water monitoring framework and open source data hub or other templates. It is more cost-effective and faster to replicate best practices of successful and tested methodologies from one region to another.

Recommendation three is to advance indigenous knowledge and data sovereignty through water stewardship. Supporting indigenous initiatives for water stewardship then, de facto, land stewardship provides us all the opportunity to learn how applied reconciliation can help us shift into new paradigms that provide action and care for many generations to come.

In closing, I'm going to reiterate what you already know. The Canadian Climate Institute issued a report in 2022 stating that by 2025, over 90% of climate impacts and disasters will involve water and will slow down Canada's economic growth by $25 billion annually.

We commend the efforts for this study on fresh water. We also urge you to rapidly accelerate non-partisan efforts towards water and food security for both indigenous and non-indigenous people living in our amazing country. In doing so, you have the opportunity to become international leaders in freshwater stewardship.

Thank you for your efforts in these very challenging times.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to the Manitoba Forage and Grassland Association. We have Duncan Morrison, executive director, and Steven Frey, director of research.

Go ahead please.

[Duncan Morrison, Executive Director, Manitoba Forage and Grassland Association]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Thank you for inviting us to be here. We are extremely grateful.

As a farmer-led non-profit organization with more than 30 years of history, Manitoba Forage and Grassland Association is extremely sensitive to the needs of those farmers who rely on the land for their livelihood.

MFGA staunchly believes that many farmers are doing outstanding work on their farms right now from a soil health, water and healthy ecosystem perspective, and by working with Aquanty, we hope to support that.

Our MFGA rationale is simply vitally important. When you don't have water, you have problems on your farm, and that's every single farm. The flow of water is the key to understanding agricultural prosperity and the incredible potential that farms and farmers can contribute to society.

We'd really appreciate your support.

I will turn it over to Steven Frey.

[Dr. Steven Frey, Director of Research, Aquanty, As an Individual]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and other members of the committee.

Thank you for the privilege of participating here today. Land management in our agricultural regions governs hydrologic response to extreme weather and will play a critical role in ensuring Canadian agriculture and ecosystem sustainability under a changing climate.

Beneficial management practices that incorporate wetlands, grasslands, cover crops, minimum tillage and controlled drainage all promote surface water and groundwater availability, improve water quality and resiliency to flood, drought and disease stress.

As climate change continues to impact surface water, groundwater is becoming increasingly important to agriculture and ecosystem productivity, yet initiatives currently proposed to address water resources in Canada ignore groundwater.

To underscore the importance of groundwater, in many rural areas and first nation lands it is often the sole source of water for both people and livestock.

In the face of increasing hydrologic uncertainty, tools that extend traditional weather forecasts into water resource forecasts will become critical. Hydrologic forecasting is already commonplace in the water resources management community, however the most common forecasting tools focus on river flow and overlook the dynamic link between groundwater and surface water. Without groundwater, we are not well suited to look at agricultural drought end points.

An example of an agriculture-focused, hydrologic prediction system that does include groundwater exists in southern Manitoba, where the Manitoba Forage and Grassland Association water forecast portal now generates field-scale weekly and monthly forward-looking hydrologic projections.

It is equally important to enhance our ability to project hydrologic conditions farther out into the future and over much larger areas. This is the objective of the relatively new Canada1Water initiative. Canada1Water is a collaborative government interdepartmental, industry and academic-driven project led by the Geological Survey of Canada and Aquanty and has developed, for the first time ever, a national scale hydrologic modelling framework with open data to project climate change impacts on the surface water and groundwater inventory over the entirety of Canada.

Even though a better understanding of short-term and long-term impacts to water resources is vital to Canada's economic and societal sustainability, projects like those mentioned are challenging to launch and perhaps even more challenging to sustain.

The MFGA water portal was funded by a now discontinued agricultural risk management program and current funding for these tools is difficult to obtain.

Canada1Water was launched with a considerable investment in time and expertise from the Geological Survey of Canada's groundwater geoscience program and $1 million in funding over three years from the Canadian safety and security program, a source of seed money but not sustained funding.

Here we're not talking about the need for tens of millions of dollars per year, but rather budgets on the order of a few million dollars per year and a commitment of government lab resources to help deliver world-class hydrologic insights that meet the needs of a broad range of stakeholders.

In closing, if I could make three recommendations for the committee to consider they would be to, one, support the development of programs that provide economic return to producers who adopt land management practices that promote hydrologic resiliency; two, recognize that decision support tools focused on water resources will become increasingly important to our agricultural community, and Canadian technology is leading the way both in Canada and around the world; and three, look into the Canada1Water project and help it find sustained funding to support this valuable initiative.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to Larissa Holman, from Ottawa Riverkeeper.

[Larissa Holman, Director, Science and Policy, Ottawa Riverkeeper]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

Thank you for embarking on a comprehensive study of the role of the federal government in protecting and managing Canada's freshwater resources.

In your collective role as the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, you have an opportunity to weigh the various responsibilities for freshwater protection and management throughout Canada.

In my role at Ottawa Riverkeeper, I have seen the challenges and benefits of working across jurisdictions at a watershed scale.

I am eager to share some of these experiences with you today, here on the unceded unsurrendered Anishinabe Algonquin territory.

Ottawa Riverkeeper is a charitable organization founded in 2001 and we are a champion for swimmable, drinkable, fishable waters throughout the Ottawa River watershed. Our mission is to protect, promote and improve the ecological health of the largest tributary of the St. Lawrence River, the formidable Ottawa River and its tributaries.

Over 23 years, Ottawa Riverkeeper has grown to become a trusted, independent voice for the protection of freshwater within the Ottawa River watershed.

We are a fully bilingual organization, and we use science-based decision-making to inform how and what we advocate for to protect the ecological health of the river, a river upon which so many of us depend.

Chances are that you are drinking tap water sourced from the Ottawa River today, yet the health of this river is threatened. As we have been told, pollution has no boundaries. Ottawa Riverkeeper has championed a multitude of issues afflicting our water, from microplastic to radioactive waste, from forever chemicals to sewer overflows and from invasive species to endangered species. We Canadians are polluting our waterways. You have an opportunity to fix this.

For Ottawa Riverkeeper, these examples highlight the importance of data collection throughout the watershed, and the data should be shared and analyzed on a watershed scale regardless of which province it is obtained from.

Ottawa Riverkeeper will soon be releasing its first watershed report card that benefited from a number of community-based monitoring programs and community scientists to help fill existing data gaps. We also analyzed publicly available data across the watershed. This report card provides a comprehensive look at the threats to the watershed on a watershed scale.

We look forward to Canada water agency's taking on an important leadership role in Canada to proactively address national and regional transboundary freshwater challenges and opportunities.

As we are fond of saying, you cannot protect half a river.

We would also like to highlight the value that watershed organizations like Ottawa Riverkeeper and those presenting here today can have when trying to address these challenges. Not only do many watershed organizations have a deep understanding of the issues affecting their regions, they often have networks that can provide localized data using a variety of cost-effective techniques. However, to remain effective, watershed organizations require long-term, consistent funding to operate.

Ottawa Riverkeeper has also submitted comments on a number of pollution issues, including reviewing the scope of the risk management for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, PFAS, and for the development of a non-fuel radioactive waste management and decommissioning policy.

We look to you, members of this committee, to ensure that fresh water will be considered in a more holistic way throughout the development of national policies, not just as an afterthought once these policies have already been drafted.

The protection required for fresh water needs to be front and centre of national policies as well as global agreements.

Thank you for your time and your interest.